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This has been straight glaring me in the face.

    My feelings are mine. I hurt. I was in a crazy relationship with a sick individual. How come I feel like she made me this way? I was taught to believe that no one can make me feel except for me. Shouldn't I be taking 100% responsibility for my feelings instead of blaming a very sick person for them? Was I that enamored that I overlooked all of the crap behavior from her that she was able to manipulate me and harm my emotions? Seriously I have had break ups before where I was dumped and was not destroyed like this. Amazing effect that I don't fully understand. I KNOW she was responsible for a lot of unacceptable behavior but my feelings? How did I become so damaged by this person? Why did none of my other failed relationships destroy me like this?

Hey Perfidy, the feelings you describe are quite common after a failed BPD relationship, so why do you want to beat yourself up?  You are in good company here.  Go easy on yourself.  I doubt anyone really understands a BPD r/s until one has gone through the wringer.  It's a complex disorder and way beyond what most have experienced, so give yourself a chance to work through your emotions and hopefully figure out what it was that made this r/s so intense yet so toxic.

Hang in there, Lucky Jim

For a multitude of reasons.

pwBPD are PROFESSIONALS. Getting attention from others, feeling cared about, loved, important is quite literally HOW THEY SURVIVE.  It is THAT big of a deal for them.  They have such issues with their sense of self, many having very little and even more having NO sense of self, that they must get all of their self worth and validation from others.  That means pleasing people... . Don't feel bad.  Maybe an analogy will help... .

Imagine you just started working at a bank.  A very suave, smooth talking man comes in and engages you at the counter. In the span of 15 minutes, the vault in the back is emptied and gone. No guns are flashed, there is no yelling, you DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING.  Would you beat yourself up over it? NO! You aren't trained nor do you have any experience in spotting bank robbers when they aren't carrying around guns.  You got fleeced by PROFESSIONALS, who were GOOD.

That is something my therapist told me... . I too asked how my BPDex had managed to penetrate so deep inside me that my emotions and mood and feelings all rested on her and the status of our relationship.  My T looked at me and smiled sadly and said very strongly, "She was GOOD".

There are so many pieces to the puzzle here.  Many times we fall into the role of wanting to be the one to "rescue" the pwBPD, to save them from the awful things that have often happened to them in their lives. We open up to them completely, give them our loyalty, trust them, all of it.  And where "normal" people see that as an incredible show of faith and love, pwBPD take it and run.  They use it against us.

I went back to my BPDex many times after she cheated on me.  We would reconcile and I would talk with her, explain, set boundaries, etc.  I kept going back because she was diagnosed, was in treatment, and was trying to get better. I didn't want to abandon her or give up on her... . and in return for me baring my soul to her, giving her a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth chance, she smiled sweetly, pretended she "got it" this time, and then went and did it all again.

It is hard for us to give up on these people.  We love them and it is hard to give up on people you love.  It is also hard to believe the things they do.  I made use of rationalization, minimalization, and denial in order to stay for as long as I did with my BPDex.  The things she did were awful.  But I found a way to downplay them so I could justify staying.

What we had for these people is not purely a weakness.  It takes great strength to give of yourself, your wants, your needs, in order to help another.  There comes a point however where you can give too much, and when you do so you wind up where we all are here now.  We were not wrong for wanting to help these people.  That is a trait to be admired.  We just lost ourselves in the process.  But, we are all in this section for a reason; we have finally decided that enough is enough, it is time to focus on US, we are no longer willing to subject ourselves to the abuse of our BPDex's, and that it is time to start living again.

We can only go up :)

Hello,

I am going through the same emotions. It is so incredibly difficult.

Octoberfest, thank you for such clear thinking. That has really helped me today.

I was talking to a good friend this morning and she said I was being harder on myself than on my ex. All the why did I / how could I / I wouldn't have let anyone else get off with treating me this way thoughts.

I'm trying to keep myself together but those thought creep in uninvited don't they?

I only hope it does get better in time.

 to you all.

I'm so glad to have found this place.

This is a great point. The hook with our borderlines is that we end up doing our damnedest to rescue and save them after they've groomed us to be their all and all. But when our needs aren't being met... . the toxic dance ensues... . then we're trapped... . it becomes the Wild Wild West... . our needs vs. their pretzel logic.

In addition the toxic dance with a Borderline is a trauma bond. That explains the deep connection and the inextricable pain that comes with the breakup.

Also the connection we more than likely had with them is reminiscent of a parent/child bond. My uBPDexbf was a perfect emotional replica of both my mother and father. My mother was withholding with affection, always grumpy/ornery, always the victim, I never knew what her mood would be and her life's failings were always someone else's fault. Her victim narrative is quite powerful.

My father was the controlling, possessive jealous type. He also triangulated my mom, manipulated her to do his will and their relationship was VERY toxic.

Because I repressed most of my "not so great" childhood and masked my insecurities in accomplishment I thought I turned out ok. Turns out I was ripe for a borderline to penetrate my Fort Knox boundaries... . and then the dance ensued. I felt "alive" with my ex because he was my sex charged parents in a bottle.

Walking away from my ex was like walking away from my parents. And it's the most painful thing I've ever had to do.

Spell

You put that well, Spell.  Can you elaborate on what you mean by a "trauma bond"?

No doubt there is something familiar about BPD that strikes a deep chord from childhood, which perhaps is why it is so hard to free oneself from the tyranny of a BPD r/s.  It seems to involve our wounds from the "not so great" childhood" that you describe, Spell.

When I finally broke free and came up for air in the aftermath of a BPD marriage, I felt severely damaged by this person, my spouse, who as a result of her disorder had nearly destroyed me.  I'm still here, though, and back on my path.  I stumble, it's true, but that's OK by me.

Lucky Jim

No doubt that the parent child bond was a big factor for me. She was sixteen years younger than me and tiny. I DID feel like I was caring for a child. Her emotional immaturity sickened me. It was very difficult for me to perceive her as an adult. I tried to end the relationship many times. I didn't even want it in the beginning. She trapped me with the wounded bird thing. Insanity. Eight years of it.